Demon Night

off’?”
    Only a strange gravity beneath the question kept her from rolling her eyes, and she said carefully, “It might have twenty years ago. Why?”
    Jake ran his hand over his hair again, but this time his expression was troubled. “The only exposure I’ve had to pop culture is the magazines and books the others brought back through the Gate. So I’m figuring out where it all fits, what’s passé and what’s relevant, so that when I go active duty I can pass as someone who hasn’t lived forty years on Caelum—or sound like a hippie.”
    “Ah.” What had Ethan’s adjustment been like? Even with news coming in from outside, Charlie imagined going from the 1880s to the 1980s would be even more difficult than adapting to all of the changes in four decades. “Well, okay—for someone like me, I’ve just heard the Karate Kid thing too many times. But if you said something similar to Jane, she’d probably laugh her head off.”
    In fact, Jane had done exactly that when Charlie had made a similar joke not long after she’d first begun visiting the gym.
    Jane. Charlie’s fists clenched as anxiety grabbed hold.
    “Just a second, Jake.” She didn’t have much hope that Jane would answer, but she used the cell phone and left yet another voice mail. She closed the phone, noted the time, and realized she had another call she needed to place. A heavy weight settled in her stomach. “I’m not going to make it to Cole’s tonight, am I?”
    “Probably not.”
    She’d done this before, at all of the crappy little jobs she’d had before Cole’s, before Jane had given her ultimatum and Charlie had been forced to decide between her self-pity and her sister. With Charlie’s voice as hoarse as it was, no one had questioned whether she was really sick—at least not the first few times. And she hadn’t cared when they’d eventually told her not to bother coming in, only felt a vague sense of relief that they weren’t depending on her anymore.
    She certainly hadn’t felt the horrible guilt and disappointment that tore at her when Old Matthew answered and she lied her way through his concern, assuring him she’d be better tomorrow.
    Goddammit. She made her way back to Jake, anger and dread dragging at her steps. What if this hadn’t been settled by tomorrow? And even if they got Jane away from Dylan, would they be staying in Seattle?
    Aside from Jane, her job and the offer Old Matthew had made to her were the best things Charlie had going—and she was about to fuck it all up.
    “Just let me know when you’re ready to talk again,” Jake said quietly.
    Her hair was in a sweaty tangle around her face, her shoulders and back aching, her calves and thighs screaming when she finally eased up and began to shake it out. She hadn’t landed a single blow past his blocks, but it was more relieving than frustrating—she hadn’t had to hold back, hadn’t had to worry about hurting anyone or pushing anyone but herself too far.
    “Okay,” she said, her chest heaving, “talk.”
    “Okay,” Jake said. “So his dad got out of the Confederate prison camp in 1864, and a few years later he bought a big place near what would spring up as Leadville, Colorado, and moved there.”
    She moved in on him again, but lighter now—just cooling down. “How long was he a P.O.W.?”
    “Not sure. And everything after that is sketchy until after Drifter and his brother graduated from Harvard—but that’s just likely because they didn’t attend any public schools, so there’s no record.”
    Remembering what Ethan had said about his mother’s reaction to his speech, Charlie put in, “I think his mom might have schooled them at home.”
    Jake nodded. “It wasn’t unusual. And after Harvard, Caleb went into a practice in Denver. Drifter was already working for a couple of different agencies, tracking down criminals who’d fled west, or who just hid out in the smaller towns. There’s quite a few mentions in various papers of him bringing in outlaws, swindlers, that sort. Then around 1885, it all seems to go to hell.”
    “How?”
    “His mom died. Killed, actually, because there was a murder trial not long after. The defendants were acquitted. Then McCabe, Sr., dies, and although the papers aren’t specific about this, there’s just enough to make me think it was suicide. Then reports of ‘The McCabe Boys’ start showing up—the trains and banks they’ve hit, the rewards on their heads, news of the bounty